Saturday, January 9, 2016

[Author's Note: We don't want to write this piece. Unlike many of his colleagues in the Texas House, Representative Gonzales is a good guy with good taste in baseball and football teams. That being said, when a Presidential campaign makes him their public surrogate, his policy views are fair game.]

Texas State Representatives James Frank and Larry Gonzales, along with former legislators Linda Harper-Brown and Martha Wong, are leading up efforts for Marco in the Lone Star State.

In addition to leading his Texas Campaign, Larry Gonzales introduced Rubio at an event in Dallas. This was notable. To understand why, we first need to review the Republican Party of Texas' recent history.

"The Texas Solution" proved itself to be very controversial among rank and file Republicans and it was subsequently repealed in the 2014 Platform:

FORT WORTH — After several hours of debate Saturday, the final day of the biennial state GOP convention, Republican delegates voted to remove the "Texas Solution" from the party’s official platform, reverting to a more hardline stance on immigration.

About 8,000 delegates gathered to consider the party platform and eventually rejected a proposed immigration plank that included language calling for a provisional visa program for immigrants. In its place, they adopted a plank that echoes the party’s 2010 platform. It does not call for a guest-worker program and instead calls for ending in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants and prohibiting sanctuary cities — municipalities that do not enforce immigration laws.

While the platform is a nonbinding set of principles for the party, it sets forth a powerful political statement of the party’s stance on key voting issues in an important election year.

Now what does this have to do with Larry Gonzales (and, subsequently, Marco Rubio)?!?

During the time in question, Larry Gonzales was one of the most prominent public supporters of "The Texas Solution." While this author didn't attend the 2012 RPT convention, we very clearly remember Gonzales leading the charge to save it in 2014. As he explained in this 2013 interview:

Well, as you know, in Texas we’ve passed the Texas Solution. So take Texas, the reddest of the red states, with the 9,000 of the reddest of the red delegates, we actually passed a temporary guest worker program. We recognized a need for that here in Texas. There is a threshold to be met to qualify for the program and the threshold is pretty high. A couple of instances, it says that the employer of the guest worker must pay all their private insurance. The guest worker waives any and all rights for entitlement programs, they must have a course and be proficient in English, they have to take an American civics course, the employer must pay all necessary taxes, withhold taxes. So there’s a really good threshold in order for them to work here, it’s not something easily attained, but it’s out there and this is Texas’ way of saying we’ve come to the table and we’ve talked the issues and it’s important we’ve passed it because in my opinion, the Democrats will never come to us to fix this solution for us. They won’t do it because the unresolved immigration issues are more powerful to them than resolved. They can win more elections, and they can rally more votes, and they can stir more fear and blame toward Republicans if the issues stay unresolved. Resolved, they have little leverage against Republicans. So the significant of passing the Texas Solution is it puts us in the position to say “We’ve started the conservation, please join us,” but I guarantee they won’t because it’s just better for them as a party for those issues to stay unresolved…It gives them a rallying call. It might not of been perfect, there may be things you like or don’t like, but it is an opportunity to say we’ve started the conversation, join us, and let’s see if they do.

And THAT'S the guy Marco Rubio chose to lead his Texas campaign.

Bottom Line: Actions speak louder than words; for Marco Rubio to select one of the most prominent public supporters of "the Texas Solution" to lead his Presidential campaign in the Lone State State speaks VOLUMES about where his sentiments really lie.

2 comments:

Don't forget Harper-Brown is the one that snuck in the legislation enabling Red Light Cameras in an unrelated bill. She also had an ethics charge against her for driving an unreported luxury car paid for by camera money.

Good grief, Adam. You ignored our ENTIRE conversation from just yesterday. Why ask for an updated stance, and if I had a different view today than in 2013, if you are going to simply ignore everything I said? Because what I said doesn't fit your predetermined narrative?

This stuff is too important to our country not to be honest with people. This blog is not honest, and you posted it anyway.

So, what exactly did I say, everyone is wondering??

This is a direct cut and paste of what I said yesterday: "Yes, a bit. A lot has changed since then. We live in a different place, different variables today than in 2011, 2013. So, yes, I have a slightly different opinion today."

If you want to discuss what specifically is different, how the world is changing around us, and what it means to our nation's security and our high tech workforce today (which significantly impacts central Texas and the district I represent), then let's talk.

You're a nice enough guy, but your purposeful inaccuracy meant to mislead and draw to a flawed predetermined conclusion, is an issue.